Powerful People Only Recognize Injustice When It Happens To Them

Trending News: Powerful People Aren't Blind To Injustice (Except When It Happens To Other People)

Why Is This Important?

Because it’s not like greedy CEOs and politicians don't have hearts — they're just selectively self-involved hearts.

Long Story Short

New research shows that people in positions of power care just as deeply about unfairness as average or disenfranchised folk. Only, there’s a catch.

Long Story

“With great power comes great responsibility.” A wise uncle once said that to Spider-Man before his untimely death. It’s a nice sentiment, a noble one — but in practice, it goes more like this: “With great power comes great responsibility… to oneself! Psych! Up yours, children!”

At least, that’s what new research out of Stanford University would have us believe. One of the most serially upsetting things about modern life is that the rich and powerful are in such incredible positions to improve the conditions of society, and yet happy, loaded philanthropists ala Bill Gates are an unfortunate minority among them. This is not to say that just because someone has money and means that they are somehow obligated to contribute to the whole, but to wonder: Why do so few do so?

It’s not like powerful people don’t care. That’s not what psychologist and study lead Takuya Sawaoka and his team are saying. Powerful people do care. In fact, the research found that top dogs and fat cats are statistically faster to pick up on injustice of all kinds — but only, interestingly, in scenarios where they themselves are the victim. Why?

“[This] may be an important mechanism by which hierarchies are maintained,” stated Sawaoka. “Powerful people’s greater sensitivity to unfairness against themselves may allow them to react more quickly against unfair treatment, and maintain their hold on power.”

Ah. The inescapable nature of our prehistoric origins rides again. Two experiments showed as much. In the first, 227 people were recruited online and asked about a time “when they had power over someone else,” or “a time in which someone else had power over them.” They then looked at “a series of trials in which [physical] money was distributed between three individuals.” Thing is, one version of this trial was rigged — one respondent got more money than the other two in 12 of the 16 trials. The other trial was rigged the other way, with one participant receiving less money than the other two in 12 out of 16 trials. Everyone was instructed to rate their allotted coins as “fair” or “unfair.” The coup de grace: Those who had indicated they thought of themselves as ‘powerful’ “were faster to perceive unfair monetary distributions in which they received less money than others.” Of most import, however, was the fact that they were not “more attentive to unfairness overall,” but to “indications that they themselves are victims.”

In the second experiment, 265 respondents (also recruited online) took part in a similarly-structured experiment — except that they simply wrote about a situation in which they’d felt powerful or neutral, and had no personal stake in the online distribution of moneys at the core of things. One group were shown a transaction that was ridiculously unfair, with one player getting less money than the other two 12 out of 16 times. The participants in this group who thought of themselves as super-awesome and all-powerful were measurably slower to note the unfairness of this, suggesting to Sawaoka and his team that power may go so far as to dilute sensitivity to unfairness that only affects others.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: What about the reverse? Are people with less means more sensitive to unfairness outside themselves? Disrupt Your Feed: So how rich do I have to be before I start to become an empathy-challenged douchebag? What’s the douchebag threshold here? Drop This Fact: Could this just be an indictment of the times? A previous study deemed the current generation the ‘Narcissus’ generation, which is to say everybody loves themselves regardless of station. As a result, they “are missing that piece about valuing, caring and their relationships, so they tend to lack empathy, they have poor relationship skills.” Ever see a gal on the train take 30 selfies in as many seconds while a heavily pregnant woman could really use her seat? Check.